Flirting With Danger
by you'll forget everything
Summary: Hermione promised herself she would never be called pathetic again.
1. Prologue

I'm only going to put this once.  
  
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine.  
  
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Flirting with Danger  
  
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Hermione sat staring out a window in the library, a book open her lap. She had previously been staring at the words on the page, trying to get them to stop blurring and make some sense. Hearing rushed voices outside; she had turned her attention to the window, watching the many students climb into carriages that would take them to Hogsmeade.  
  
She couldn't see their faces, but she knew they were all smiling happily. In her mind, she could see Harry and Ron, arms entwined with their girlfriends of the week, walking down the streets stopping only for long kisses and heading for some dark alley tucked away where they wouldn't be seen or heard.  
  
Hermione was used to seeing this, for she had seen it since the beginning of the year. She had come back to school to find her friends become more and more distant. To see them not need her and her plain brown hair and eyes. At times she felt as though her personality was also a dull shade of brown, nothing compared to bright bubbly interesting personalities of the girls Harry and Ron dated. It seemed like her best friends' egos and their craving for tramps had grown along with their bodies. They had acquired longish hair and toned bodies and perfect faces. And she supposed she just wasn't good enough for them anymore.  
  
They didn't need her help on homework (or rather, they did, they were just to stubborn to admit it) or her nagging about studying. So therefore, they didn't need her. They had never said it in so many words of course, they would always be too nice for that no matter how shallow they had become. They rarely spoke to each other anymore and when they did it was all polite chitchat, Harry and Ron being distracted by other things.  
  
But it was something Harry and Ron could accept, because they would always have each other. And Hermione was left with no best friends to speak of.  
  
Hermione turned away from the window and wiped her face with an angry swiping of the few stray tears she had left. She had cried herself to sleep every night since the beginning of the year, and she feared she had no tears left for anything or anyone. She stood and walked briskly out of the library, the place she had once felt was her security blanket, now a place that suffocated her with painful memories. She rushed past the shelves of books and shoved the large heavy doors open, now at a dead run, and bolted through them and down the hall, wanting to find anywhere to go that wasn't here.  
  
Hermione had only one other thought as she ran before going completely numb. At least this year is almost over, she told herself Almost over.  
  
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Draco Malfoy stalked in the opposite direction Hermione was running, walking at a slow pace and whistling slightly. His black robes billowed around him as he walked; giving him an appearance that made everyone he crossed back away and stay as far away from him as possible.  
  
He sauntered down the hallway, flashing a sinister smirk to the only painting he liked in the whole godforsaken school, one of an evil witch named Morgana. Her portrait itself gave away her wicked nature, let alone the bad vibes she seemed to radiate. Morgana was dressed in a black gown that seemed to be made of ebony smoke. She had shortly cropped black hair and cherry red lips. Her eyes were the only things about her that did not send a chill down ones spine. They were the color of a cloudless blue sky on a sunny day. She grinned widely back at him and gave a little wave, signaling for him to come have a chat with her.  
  
Draco went to the portrait and impatiently talked to the beautiful dark lady in it. This is the reason Morgana was so fond of Draco. Her picture did not intimidate him, so therefore he was the only person for her to talk to. All of the other students cowered away from her before she even said one word. Not that she'd have put up with any of their driveling, anyway.  
  
"Hello Morgana." He said, in a slow, sensual drawl.  
  
"Why, hello there." She replied. She smiled at him with a slight smirk, "And where are you off too?"  
  
Draco gave her his most charming grin, "Well, I was headed towards the library, to see if I couldn't get in any last minute studying. O.W.L.S coming up soon, you know."  
  
Morgana didn't believe his reason for going to the library for a split second, but she wasn't about to pester him about it. She had a sneaking suspicion he was off to meet another of his female conquests. Ah, how it wasn't fair. The living got to have all the fun.  
  
"Well, hurry along them. Your studying awaits you." She said with only the tiniest bit of emphasis on 'studying'.  
  
"Ah, indeed it does, indeed it does." Draco replied, giving her a small smirk before heading off in the direction of the library. He only made it a few steps away from the ever-smirking portrait before he stopped short, seeing one of his worst enemies running right towards him. He leaned against the corridor wall and waited for her arrival, while Morgana watched in interest.  
  
Hermione slowed almost to a dead halt right before Draco, just looking at him for a moment. He stared at her with a blank expression for a few minutes, taking in her puffy eyes and tearstained cheeks. He noticed how her school uniform, with the shirt too big and the skirt longer then dress code required, was extremely disheveled. He saw how her chest heaved with exertion until she finally started breathing normally again, still looking at him. Finally, she started to walk past him with as much dignity she could muster at the moment.  
  
His face spread into a slow smirk, chuckling quietly and turning his head to watch her walk.  
  
"Gods, you are pathetic Granger. Absolutely pitiful."  
  
She stopped, staring straight ahead and not looking at him. She could feel her eyes filling up with tears, and she willed them with all her might not fall. Finally without so much as glancing at him, she took off running. Running away from Draco's taunting smirk and Morgana's high pitched giggling. Running away from best friends who had thrown her to the curb. And running away from the truth she was well aware of.  
  
She was pathetic.  
  
But she vowed to herself then, as she sprinted down the corridor and up the stairs towards the Gryffindor common room, that she would not be called pathetic anymore. Not one more time. Ever.  
  
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Well that's all for the prologue. But trust me, this is only the beginning of the story. And I know this is rather short, but I had to start somewhere. This will be the last chapter of the 5th year. Next time I post, it will be the 6th year. If I decide to continue, anyway. 


	2. 1

Yaaay, new chapter. If some of you cant figure this out, ' ' are thoughts and " " is conversations.  
  
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Hermione scowled as she pressed her forehead against the backseat window of the taxi she was currently in. She had stooped to the level of talking to the blasted thing. She realized how stupid this was, yes, but she was willing to try anything to stay away from the Express.  
  
'Stop moving,' she told the car commandingly. Then realizing it wasn't going to obey, she tried again. 'Drive off that bridge maybe?'  
  
'Well I was being a little too optimistic there,' She reasoned with herself. 'Maybe I'll grow a deadly contagious disease on the way there and will have to be quarantined?' She rolled her eyes. 'Oops, there it goes again. Damn my morbidly optimistic brain.'  
  
She was on her way towards the train that would take her to the place that she had dreaded going back to all summer.  
  
She was going back to Hogwarts.  
  
Hogwarts had once been her HOME, her sanctuary. Now she would rather stay at a house where her parents were never there and when they were, they were yelling at her. Her house was huge, and besides the maid who seemed to be there more then her parents and Hermione, it was quite empty.  
  
One day this summer she had spent wandering the many rooms aimlessly. She passed through the small library they had there running her hands over the books, becoming lost in thought. When she was growing up her parents used to buy new books from time to time to add to the others. Then she would have something to do after coming home from school. Ever since she had started going to Hogwarts, her parents never bought any new books, and her hands were then covered in dust from touching them.  
  
Apparently, they had decided the library wasn't worth cleaning as well.  
  
She had frowned and crossed the room to the back left corner. She then stepped on a stepladder placed there and took a book hiding on top of the shelf. She took a seat on the stepladder and carefully opened it with shaky hands. It was her baby book.  
  
'Hermione Juliet Granger, first word age 1. Said 'Nanny'. Appears to be a very smart child.'  
  
The book had said. She despised this book more then anything, but had read it so many times by then she practically had it memorized. She wasn't sure why she ever bothered. The whole thing was full of professional photographs and recordings by the nanny Hermione had had until she was old enough to take care of herself.  
  
Hermione had sat there for what could have been 30 minutes or could have been 5 hours, just staring straight ahead, not letting her eyes tear up. Every time she even thought of this book it filled her with hateful rage. Shouldn't her parents have filled it out? She had thought. Why had her first word been Nanny?  
  
Hermione was getting angry again just staring out the window now. What was it her mother had told her about it years ago?  
  
'I was just too busy is all, Hermione.'  
  
Oh yes, that.  
  
She thought back again to this summer, thinking of how she had stood up and threw the baby book against the wall with as much strength as she could and ran from the library. She kept running until her lungs burned sharply and her legs collapsed beneath her. She stared with gasping breaths at a full-length mirror in the hallway. She had studied her long dull brown hair; it was the color of mud. She had studied her overly conservative clothes.  
  
She remembered asking herself why she was still doing everything her parents wanted. Being the perfect little girl for her anything-but-perfect Mother and Father. And that had been the day everything changed.  
  
Hermione smirked now at the thought and twirled a strand of her now black hair. She always wanted black hair, and that day she had dyed it so. She would never cut or straighten it, knowing how insane that would be. Her curls had grown to midway down her back, and while not being anywhere near straight, were not frizzy either.  
  
'And then I outraged them with my newly black hair.' She flat out grinned at the memory. The memory of both her parent's jaws dropping and then there was the yelling. Oh, the yelling.  
  
'I'm surprised those screaming banshee's didn't knock down the whole house, if not the neighborhood.'  
  
She didn't remember exactly what they had said, considering she hadn't really been listening, but she knew the words 'idiotic', 'horrible', and 'disgusting' were used. After that, she had left. She did something she had never done before, and she had walked out on her parents before they were done talking to her.  
  
And she had gotten her lip pierced.  
  
She was so tired of doing what everyone else wanted. So tired. She was doing what she wanted to do now. Walking around that night, the night she swore she could still hear her parents yelling a mile away, she passed a tattoo parlor. She thought it would be really cool to have her lip pierced, and so, Hermione Granger had done the first impulsive thing in her life without having any doubts or second thoughts.  
  
Fingering the stud in her lip now, she thought about the changes that had so quickly taken her over during the summer.  
  
When she was 11, she was very good at putting out a façade that she was confident and didn't care what other people thought. Her face would betray nothing, but inside she collected the insults and would cry over them later. When she finally became friends with Harry and Ron, it was much easier to have false confidence. And when they left her, she crawled into a dark hole and decided never to come out again.  
  
All through 5th year, she answered questions only when directly asked. She never raised her hand. She never talked to anyone if they didn't talk to her first. She would always help people with their homework.  
  
And whenever she was alone, she would cry what seemed to be rivers. Rivers that spilled out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks and spilled into her lap. She wouldn't stop until the fear that someone would see her took over.  
  
She had decided that day that no one would call her pathetic anymore. And no one would. She was sick of it, sick of them. She wasn't going to be anyone's doormat anymore.  
  
Hermione had to blink twice to realize that the taxi was no longer moving. She was at the train station, fate having no mercy on her at all. The car hadn't blown up, and she hadn't gotten cancer.  
  
She was going back to Hogwarts.  
  
'Bugger.' She thought with feeling.  
  
Stepping out of the taxi, she smoothed her shirt down. She was wearing comfortable black jeans and tank top. It's not as though she completely transformed into a monster, no, she still absolutely hated makeup. She wore none with the exception of some eyeliner, which made her eyes appear bigger.  
  
Anymore would make her feel like she looked like Lavender or Parvati. She shuddered at the thought.  
  
Dragging her trunk and cat cage along, she headed in no particular hurry towards her platform. It wasn't that she didn't feel she could handle Hogwarts or it's evil residents, she most certainly could. She just didn't want to put up with the lot of them.  
  
Oh well, she supposed she'd make the most of it.  
  
She walked easily through the invisible barrier and dragged her 2 million pound trunk over to the storage compartment. She picked it up with some trouble and heaved it in. Then she removed Crookshanks from his cage and put the cage in the storage, too. She cuddled her kitty for a moment and turned around to go on the train.  
  
And found herself face to face with Harry.  
  
'Well, well, well. It's The Boy Who Really Gets On My Bloody Nerves. This just had to be the first person I ran into, eh?' She thought, feeling the smirk spread on her face.  
  
First he seemed to just glance right by her, who she was not connecting with his brain quite yet. Then, he did a double take. She could see the confusion setting in, along with the shock.  
  
"Her..Hermione?" He said slowly, as if trying to convince himself.  
  
"Harry." She said rather curtly.  
  
"You look so-er-different."  
  
She rolled her eyes at the comment, and said with all seriousness, "No, all I've done is dye my hair the color I like and put a piece of metal in my lip. I'm surprised you would claim to know how I look, considering you haven't even looked at me for a bloody year."  
  
She smiled at him sweetly as his mouth dropped open slightly. She had been wanting to say that for the longest time. "Well, here comes your best buddy. I should be getting along. I suppose I'll be seeing you around. Tell Ron I said Hello, ey?"  
  
She walked over to the door of the train and stepped inside, leaving Harry looking after her with a still-not-sure-he-saw-that look.  
  
Ron walked up to Harry looking slightly miffed. "Sorry mate, Mum held us all back to give us our yearly blessing out before school. You slipped away just in time. Wow-look at Lavender. She looks good..what is up with you?"  
  
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Hermione sat in an empty compartment, an extremely large book held open in her lap. She was sitting cross-legged and was currently biting her pinkie nail. She was engrossed in the book she was reading. It was actually a book of Poe, one she had read many times but would never get tired of.  
  
Crookshanks purred contentedly from his spot on the seat next to her. She absentmindedly stroked his head, receiving a happy meow from her pet.  
  
She heard her compartment door open, but did not bother to look at who had come in. People had been coming in all day, some (anyone not in Slytherin) who said their polite hello's, others who just left wordlessly.  
  
The Slytherin's gave their to-be-expected, and all around boring snarky comments. None of which Hermione could repeat, she had really not been listening.  
  
This person however, gave a malicious chuckle. She recognized it immediately as Draco Malfoy, the boy who had always succeeded in making her cry. She still did not look up, but she felt a smirk play on her lips.  
  
Of course it was him. Annoying prat that he was.  
  
Well, he would not make her cry again. She never cried anymore.  
  
"Wow Granger, what alternate universe did you come out of?"  
  
"The one in which you had no mouth." She replied shortly, still not bothering to look at him.  
  
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh well, I'd still look good. Are you trying to be bad, Mudblood?"  
  
At this point, she looked at him. He had stayed longer then any of her previous unwelcome guests. "I don't know, Ferret, are you trying to be cool?" If he was surprised by her suddenly growing a backbone, he didn't show it. He just smirked at her. "Some of us don't have to try, actually."  
  
She gave him a blank look and blinked once. "Are you going to leave? Cuz I have to change into my uniform and in case you hadn't noticed, we're almost there."  
  
He shook his head at her, the smug smirk never leaving his face. "You're amusing, Mudblood, but it will be more so to see you when you break down. I'll probably laugh the hardest." He turned and sauntered out her door, letting it slam shut.  
  
She stood up and stretched. For the first time in 6 years, he hadn't been able to strike a nerve.  
  
This was altogether inspiring.  
  
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Tis all for the 1st chapter. I hope you all liked. I'll try to have my next chapter out soon, although I am going to NYC for the next week so I don't know how quickly I'll be able to get it out. 


	3. 2

Hey guys, thanks for the reviews!! It's really made me get off my lazy ass and get these chapters out faster. I really appreciate all the feedback. Anyway, here's the next chapter.  
  
Oh, and the trip went well, but I'm sure no one cares about that. I just wanted to clear up one of the questions I got in a review. I was asked if Hermiones appearance is better. The answer is Yes, Hermione looks better, but it's not that she really looked bad in the first place. She was always pretty, she would just hide it. She was really only plain looking because she was worried about doing what she wanted to her appearance. In gaining confidence, her inner and outer beauty are seen a lot more. That's all.  
  
Sorry if someone doesn't get that, but that is the way I want to portray my Hermione. I don't want her to be some bleach blonde bimbo, because that's rather out of character, don't you think? I know this Hermione is out of character somewhat, but I think they all have to be in fanon. Ooookay, I'm really done with this really long authors note. On to the chapter.  
  
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The train jerked slightly as it came to a stop, seeming to heave a huge sigh of relief. The jerk wasn't enough to throw anyone off their step or anything, but it was enough to brutally throw Hermione out of her daze.  
  
Shortly after that complete sod Malfoy had left her in peace, she had begun to stare out the window. At first she saw clearly defined shapes, that of land and trees, but soon everything outside had blurred to just a mixture of shapes.  
  
She watched this without really seeing as she was in somewhat of a trance- like state. She was thinking of anything and everything. She was thinking of nothing. Grinning to herself, she thought that it was like the meditation her mother was thoroughly convinced was a waste of time.  
  
She shook her head and rubbed her eyes lazily with the backs of her hands. She was slightly confused for a moment, but soon she realized why the train must have come to a stop. She picked up her robe and bag while rushing out the door.  
  
She hurried through the deserted train with its empty compartments and jumped the steps off the train. She paused only a brief second to throw her robe on, not bothering to flatten or straighten it to work out the creases. Then she mixed herself among the confusion of scared 1st years and the other years talking and walking at a leisurely pace.  
  
Some were walking at a pace too leisurely, and Hermione knew they must have been grasping the moments of freedom they had.  
  
She watched blankly as Mrs. McGonagall, her favorite teacher, walked by with what could only be the 5th and 6th year prefects. She could see the badges shining brightly even in night sky.  
  
She could imagine the tremendous shock she had given her teacher when McGonagall found out Hermione had declined the offer to be a prefect this year.  
  
Not that she had been a very good prefect last year. She was almost always too nervous to give out any serious ass kicking.  
  
She studied the new 5th year prefects, only recognizing one Ginny Weasley. One of the faces was vaguely familiar but she couldn't but a name to it. Not really caring much, Hermione looked at the 6th year prefects; seeing that all of them were the same one's as last year, minus her obviously.  
  
There was Terry for Ravenclaw, Hannah for Hufflepuff, and Blaise for Slytherin. (Hermione thought this odd since Blaise broken every rule the school had at least twice. But she was a Slytherin, after all, and they didn't seem to get any better then that.) Dean seemed to have taken Hermione's place this year.  
  
The big shocker for Snape, and the huge relief for all normal teachers was Draco Malfoy refusing the offer of prefect for the second year in a row. He had the second highest grades in the school, but he was hardly prefect material.  
  
Apparently, he didn't think so either.  
  
He probably just liked breaking the rules too much.  
  
And Hermione doubted he had any sense of responsibility.  
  
Draco Malfoy, your everyday typical bad boy.  
  
The thought made her want to roll her eyes.  
  
Hermione had never wanted to be a Prefect. Last year, she had done it to avoid all the nosy questions of her classmates. She had done it because she was The Hermione Granger, and she had to be a Prefect.  
  
But not this year.  
  
She would go from being An Ignored Fake Something to An Ignored Nothing, and this she considered a very large leap forward.  
  
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Hermione took an empty seat at the Gryffindor table, the only one surrounded by nothing but other empty chairs. She would have liked it to stay that way. She really, really would have liked that. Unfortunately Harry and Ron decided to sit across the table from her. Which really was understandable, it was the last cluster of empty seats available.  
  
She was aware of this.  
  
However, she let out a string of obscenities for a good two minutes straight and cursed her luck twice over.  
  
It ended up that she was sitting directly across from Ron, and soon she cringed as she realized why they needed more seats. Lavender sat across from Harry and smiled at him with her porcelain doll, heavily made up face. Parvati went across the table and sat next to Ron. She automatically attached herself to his arm as if she were a leech.  
  
Hermione glared in disgust as Ron grinned at Parvati.  
  
Dumbledore stood up to announce the beginning of the sorting, but Hermione couldn't tear her eyes away from the horror movie in front of her. She couldn't take it anymore, being ignored would be okay, but not being ignored and audience to this disturbing display.  
  
So she did something no one had ever done before.  
  
This was becoming the norm for her.  
  
She got up from the table and went to sit on the floor, out of hearing range and seeing range to the love-fest. This caused even Harry and Ron to stare at her with shock for a long moment, along with most of the other occupants of the Great Hall.  
  
Except perhaps the new 1st years, because they had no idea this was that odd of an occurrence.  
  
The teachers stared dumbfounded at her for a moment, but could do nothing about it, there was nothing in the rulebook stating this wasn't allowed.  
  
Hermione knew this because during her year as a prefect, she had read and memorized the whole rulebook. That was never really helpful to her, but she did tend to run out of homework quickly. Actually, Fred and George had memorized the whole thing in their first year, but this was just so they could find some loophole to get them out of trouble.  
  
Or maybe they were counting how many they broke?  
  
She sat on the cold, hard tile floor that hurt her bum horribly with a slight smile on her face, happy to get away from Harry, Ron, and the clown- faced bimbo twins.  
  
Hermione could place as much distance between herself and her former best friends as she wanted, but she could never stop her mind from wandering to them.  
  
Which is what her rebellious brain did quite often.  
  
She was constantly plagued with happy memories of their best friendship. Although she was angry enough with them to never talk to them again or perhaps even hex their mouths off (which was sounding like a good idea), she was only human and it still hurt.  
  
Not that she would ever admit that.  
  
The memories were mocking her. She knew they were. They were chuckling in her face. Harry and Ron were bastards, but it was almost impossible to even think this about them when all she saw were their Cheshire cat grins on Christmas days.  
  
She was very tired of caring about them, but they were her first best friends. They had no doubt always used her in some way, but at one point they had generally cared for her. What had happened?  
  
Hermione was growing incessantly angry with herself as well as Harry and Ron. What the hell? Why couldn't she just forget about them and move on?  
  
As they obviously have forgotten her.  
  
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Hermione was dragging herself up the revolving staircase (that thankfully wasn't revolving now) towards her Common Room. She had gotten held up behind most everyone to have a friendly chat with Malfoy.  
  
Haha. Friendly, indeed.  
  
He had said something like, "Say, mudblood, do refrain from dirtying up a floor I have to walk on by sitting on it, alright?"  
  
Hermione yawned before she replied, "Come on, Malfoy, do we have to do this now? As much as I enjoy our lovely little talks I'm rather tired right now, and I would like to go to bed."  
  
He looked at her for a moment and asked her something full of malice, but with a little touch of curiosity. This was an odd occurrence, he was never curious about anything that had to do with her.  
  
"Why did you dirty up the floor anyway, Granger? Trying to make a point? Because I'd think you're actually helping our cause, Mudbloods having to sit on the floor and all. You know."  
  
She regarded him for a moment with A Look, then, "Because I was more comfortable there then at the Gryffindor table. That's all. Not really trying to make a point, but if I was, it would probably be more about people who are prejudiced enough to make a big deal of someone sitting on the floor."  
  
She had just smirked and left him there.  
  
Hermione had now come upon her common room and wonderful thoughts of a warm bed filled her head. This was before she realized she had no idea what the password was.  
  
Well, damn.  
  
Hermione sighed heavily and stared at the portrait.  
  
"Stupid fucking Gryffindors?" She said hopefully.  
  
"Actually, it's 'Butterbear is good. But yours was a good guess." A voice behind Hermione told her. It was a voice she recognized easily. That didn't stop her from wishing it wasn't him.  
  
She turned to face Harry, who had snuck up on her for the second time in one day. This really had to stop.  
  
"Hey, 'Mione." He said sheepishly. He looked rather embarrassed to be talking to her.  
  
She narrowed her eyes at him, "Don't call me that, Harry."  
  
He stared at her, kind of surprised, "I thought you liked that name?"  
  
"I don't anymore."  
  
"Has EVERYTHING changed with you, Hermione? It seems like you're a completely different person." He sounded like he was on that first step to giving into the irritation bubbling and rising in his stomach.  
  
"Wake up Harry, you didn't know me in the first place." She said this without much conviction; she was tired of blaming, tired of being so angry. She was just stating a fact now.  
  
She turned her back on him and walked through the portrait. She felt the familiar tingle in the back of her eyes, the stinging feeling. She would not cry.  
  
Harry did not deserve that.  
  
She hurried up to her dorm and shut the door, wanted to slam it with all her might. Maybe even opening it and slamming it again. Almost everyone was asleep already though, so she didn't.  
  
She busied herself with punching the oversized pillow she had instead.  
  
She must have punched it for 10 minutes straight before she was finally calm enough to stop and wait for her ragged breath to stop.  
  
'I wish I could get out of here.'  
  
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And so ends the first day back! Haha sorry I made you all wait so long. FF.N was down for a while and then this chapter got erased on accident a few times. Anyway, I know not much is really happening yet, but I'm working on it. Gotta build up and stuff, I don't want to just jump into everything. I hate stories like that. Thanks again for all the wonderful reviews! 


	4. Note

Hey guys.wow, I'm REALLY sorry I haven't been able to write. It's just, the new year just started and it's all I can do to get homework done and pretty much die. My school starts at 7, have to be to the bus by 6:20, so I have to wake up at 5 or earlier everyday. I'm really going to try to get this story up because I really want to finish it. Just please don't be mad at me, I'm not just a slacker.  
  
333333 


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